Healthy, Wealthy, & Wise

Methodology

The Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise indices combine multiple indicators into a single, comparative measure of economic well-being. The index is constructed from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates and County Business Patterns (CBP) datasets. Tables Figure 1, Figure 2, and Figure 3 contain the indicators for the respective index.

The individual indicators are individually normalized across 105 counties on a scale of 0 to 100, where 100 represents the most distressed county and 0 represents the least distressed county. The individual indicators are normalized using the following formula:

\[\text{Index Indicator}_{ij} = \frac{X_{ij}-\text{min}_{(\text{of } 105)}\{X_i\}}{\text{max}_{(\text{of } 105)}\{X_i\}-\text{min}_{(\text{of } 105)}\{X_i\}} \times 100,\]

where \(X_{ij}\) is the value of indicator \(i\) for county \(j\). The final index value results from taking the geometric mean of the respective indicators. To handle the zeros, one is added to each normalized indicator; therefore, one is then subtracted from the calculated mean.

Figure 1: Healthy Indicators

Figure 2: Wealthy Indicators

Figure 3: Wise Indicators

Results

Figure 4: Healthy Index

Figure 5: Wealthy Index

Figure 6: Wise Index